I noticed a new Amazon affiliate notice in my account today for AmazonUnbox Video Downloads. Basically, it’s a service like iTunes for downloading videos for a fee. As an affiliate, you can earn a percentage rate on video downloads, as well as products now.

Amazon Unbox allows you and your site visitors to purchase or rent your favorite movies and TV shows to download and watch on your PC – all in DVD quality…

Associates are eligible to earn 10%, a full 1.5% above the highest earnings tier, on all Unbox referrals (up to $1.50 per item). There is no limit to the number of items on which referral fees are earned.

The Unbox page leverages the information held in Amazon - sales, clicks, etc - to configure popularity recommendations and increased downloads. I have not tried the video quality, nor will likely, but it could conceivably be an alternative for many to the iTunes distribution model.

(aff)

Tags: amazon unbox, amazon, unbox, video downloads, amazon affiliate

YouTube has announced today that it will be enabling a revenue share system:

"Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, said Saturday that the wildly successful site will start sharing revenue with its millions of users.

Hurley, who along with the site’s co-founders sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion in November, said one of the major innovations the site is working on is a way to allow users to be paid for content.

‘We are getting an audience large enough where we have an opportunity to support creativity, to foster creativity through sharing revenue with our users,’ Hurley said at the World Economic Forum. ‘So in the coming months, we are going to be opening that up.’ " [Source]

Does this have something to do with the YouTube deals? (Google, Warner Music, Verizon, NBC, etc) How content will be syndicated? To identify material that is copyright? Or to simply bump up the marketing hype and make YouTube even more viral than it already is.

So, my question, being in the Entertainment industry - what constitutes original content? What is the line for ‘parody’ or fair use? I know already networks take different stances on it. I’ve even been thanked by the WB for my videos, while had one from another network stripped. So, how will this change the system?

Via digg ; Tags: youtube, revshare, rev share, revenue share, revenue sharing, video, video blogging, video blog, youtube money, youtube deals, making money online

Google is expanding its video advertising testing with new ads from BMG and Warner.

According to the article, Google announced today that it will work with these two major music labels to embed video advertisements over the next 4 week test period on a select set of websites.

"Over the past few months, we have run tests to figure out how we work with our partners and advertisers to combine high quality video content with ads and then distribute them (over) the Google AdSense network," Google said in statement.

The test with the two music labels follows an earlier public trial of Google’s video advertising system with Viacom’s MTV Networks, which provided music videos to run on a select number of Web sites running Google ads…

As a example, Warner Music has defined multiple video channels along themes like "rock music" or featuring the "Divas of Pop Music." A Web site owner can select a video channel and embed it on a section of the site dedicated to running Google AdSense ads. Visitors then can click to watch ad-supported videos within the video channel on sites running the ads.

Tags: google, bmg, warner, music labels, video, video advertising, google adsense

I’ve been prowling around Squidoo for a few days and one lens I popped across is a perfect Blog Primer. It’s a Blogging Starter Checklist.

The list contains things to put on your blog (like search, contact, etc), non-blog things that need to happen, registries and directories (very thorough), a whole series of posts that might be relevant to newbie bloggers, checking all your rankings, blog awards, and books that might be relevant.

The steps are well organized and have valuable links.

Tags: blog checklist, blogging, blog, blogger, new blog, how to blog

Tony Hung, while guest blogging on ProBlogger, wrote a great and thorough piece titled ‘How to Market your blog in 2007′

There are dozens of tips on Getting your House in Order, Getting the Word Out, Connecting, and using Social Media

Go check it out! Great work Tony!

Tags: blog, blogging, blogs, blog marketing, social networking

Text Link Ads (aff) are now available for Blogger sites (latest version of Blogger).

I have been extremely happy with TLA for the many months we’ve been with them on our Wordpress blogs, and they are likely to see quite a large increase based on the availability to Blogger blogs.

Tags: text link ads, blogger, blog advertising

Google’s blog service, Blogger, now offers support for custom domains. Plus, they’ll host it - free - and redirect your old URL for you.

Blogger added a new feature: Bring your own domain. All you have to do is buy a domain, anywhere, at any price you can find, set up your Blogger account and point your DNS at Google’s server at ghs.google.com, and viola*! Now your Blogger blog appears at its own domain name, and all you had to do was pay less than ten bucks a year for the domain. You don’t need hosting, because Blogger handles all the traffic, you just bring the domain. [InsideGoogle]

Of course, you’d still be stuck with the Blogger platform, which is quite the chore to muck around with. Even free hosting won’t tempt me over to use Blogger. Wordpress is still my choice, hands down.

Via duncan ; Tags: blogger, google, blog software, google news

Toby over at Diva Marketing has a great post on Blogger Relations / Blogger Relations Programs.

She goes over bloggers vs journalists, bloggers as influencers, and the different expectations of bloggers when being approached by journalists or companies.

Bloggers are not set against partnerships or sponsorships or anything of the sort, for the most part. We just have different expectations in the way in which we are pitched.

Toby then outlines the essential elements to a Blogger Relations Program, as follows:

• Build on the values of social media
• Establish credibility and trust by creating relationships
• On-going informal conversations - comments, email, phone, face-to-face
• Position (you/company) as resource that can provide value added information
• Develop long-range programs that engage and develop the relationships
• Provide "special blogger only something" - TBD by strategy and needs
• Bring bloggers together to discuss related issues
• Include bloggers in customer feedback circles
• Respect bloggers’ time
• Courtesy and appreciation - thank the blogger for her participation and help

Hop on over to Diva Marketing to participate in the discussion.

Tags: blogger relations, blogger relations program, blogging, pr, blogs, marketing to bloggers